Process for multicolor printing on flocked area of fabric



Dec. 12, 1950 J. ARoNsTElN ETAL 2,533,985

PROCESS FOR MULTICOLOR PRINTING ON FLOCKED AREA 0F FABRIC Filed Sept.l2, 1947 ATTO EYS Patented Dec. 12, 1950 PRCESS FOB MULTICOLOB PBINTINGN FLOCKED AREA oF FABRIC Joseph Aronstein and Mitchell' Aronstein, NewYork, N- Ye and Joseph A. Solomon, Home ton, Va.

Application September 12, 1947, Serial No. '773,656

l Claim' 1 This invention pertains to the manufacture of okod textilefabrics and particularly to the manufacture of such fabrics 'wherein thedocked areas are colored with one or several colors. Qur inventionComprehends. a continuous, QQmmercial proooss ood apparatus forProducing, indoiotoly 1011s lengths of moltioolorod iloohod material. atlmQlUllY high. slpeds- In tho oostz fabrics. have been dotted. byYariQllS @Olitlllllls 9100657595 t0 PTQdll il malle" rial wherein thehooked oroo/S 'all had the ,somo coloring. The iflzocvzl;` itself wassometimes colored before it was applied to the yfabric; sometimes had acolor different from that of the fabric. In some cases, by resorting tomuch handwerk., it has been possible to produce relatively smallindividual panels of textile fabric bearing flocked patterns in severalcolors, the various colors being applied one at a time by handoperations. There has been no satisfactory commercial process, however,nor any commercial machinery suitable for yproducing continuously amulticolored flocked pattern on a textile fabric,

@ne of the principal obstacles to coloring selectively a flocked awa hasarisen from the fact that Hocking is ordinarily done upon a sheer, oftendiaphanous, backing material, such as a sheer marquisette, so that theopaque docked areas will present a pleasing contrast of" textures. Withsuch al backing material it has been commercially impractical to passthe textile through any` SOT-t of printing process for the reason thatthe inf herent nature of: the backing material would cause it to give,and to stretch unevenly, making it impossible, to, bring the variouscolorsv into proper. registration with one another or to orient themupon the fioclsed areas according to any predetermined plan.` By ourinvention we have devised various processes and apparatus whereby. afabric, even though fragile and insubstantial, may be passed through aconventional` type oi multioolorv p rliltrlg; assembly to apply, accord"ing to a predetermined plan, correctly aligned colors. to flocked areasor to, selected areas; ofy the fabric..

lt is an objectrv of our invention to provide a process and apparatus ofthe character described having to a notable extent the characteristicsand capabilities set forth;- n` further Objectis to pro,- vide methodsofy and means; for continuously manufacturing aV multicolored textilelfabric.. A mother-objectivesthe provision. of an apparatus which.Combines aridisynchronizcs a nochma ao,- sernbly.-v with a multicolorprinting assembly; A Still; further-f obiootivo the loro-vision orcertain 2 y methods of flocking and certain flock applying and printingassemblies, which overcome various disadvantages inherent in known priorart constructions. Other objects will in part be pointed out as thedescription proceeds and will in part become apparent therefrom.

The invention accordingly consists in the vfeatures of construction,combinations of elements, methods of operation and arrangements of partsas will be exemplied in the structure and Sequences and groups ofrelated steps to be hereinafter described and the scope of the application. of which will be set forth in the accompanyme, Claim- 1n thisspeciication and the accompanying drawings We have shown and. describeda pre ferred embodiment of our invention and suggested variousmodifications thereof; but it is to be understood that these are notintended to be exhaustive nor limiting of the invention but, ou theoontrery, are elven for purposes of illus-l tration order that othersskilled in. the art may fully understand the invention and theprinciples thereof and the manner of applying it in various forms,y eachas may be best suited to the conditions of a particular use.`

In. the drawings:

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of a cross-section through adockingv apparatus embodyng our invention;

.a marquisette or other relatively sheer, semitranslucent leno Weave'.Strip 2li passesv around: a roller 24 and, in the embodiment; disclosed,moves horizontally through a ocllringf assembly indicated at,28, aiiocl:v curing assembly 28', and' ultimately reversely through amulticolor printing assembly indicated at 3b; The` stripl then passesaround another roller 32 and proceeds to afplace, of storage;

Elgocloing assembly 26, as: indicated, is of conventional form andincludes a'I printing' roll 34' which; carries upon its surface,A thedesign to bei ilocked upon the textile fabric. A suitable flockingcement 36 is applied to roll 34 from a supply trough 38 by means of acement roller 40 disposed in rolling contact with the surface ofprinting roll 34 and arranged so that a portion of it, as it rotates,passes through cement 36. Assembly 26 further includes a conventionalflock blasting unit 42 which provides a blast of flock against thesurface of strip 20 so that the portion of the strip surface which bearsfresh cement, as applied by printing roll 34, will be covered. Thecuring assembly 28 in the present embodiment includes a series ofheating -pipes 44 and a shell 46, together forming a lehr-likepassageway 48 through which-the flocked fabric passes and in which theflocking cement is permanently set. It will be appreciated that the formtaken by the curing assembly will depend upon the medium by which theflock is fixed upon the fabric as well as other considerations such asthe type of backing fabric, type of flock, etc. At-the end of assembly28 thereis afiock removing unit 56 using an air blast in a well-knownmanner to removeexcess -flock-not-cemented to strip 20. -Y Y y Theprinting assembly isvof a known multicolor type and the presentembodiment Aincludes three printing rolls- 52,454l andl 56,- eachofwhich is supplied with a suitable dye by one of the dye rollers 58,'66and62,`respectively. The dye rollers are fedwith'dye 'from dve troughs64, 66 and 83. respectively. In the illustrative' form; trough 64contains a blue dye,Vl trough"66 'ared dye and trough-68 a yellow dye;It will be understood that the various dye printing rolls are providedwith'printing surfaces corresponding Vto the conf lffura'tions vori' theflocked srface whichv are'V to be 'impressed' with the respectivecolors. "Accordingly, it will'be understood that the marquisette strip,during normal operation, proceeds downwardly from supply 22, underroller 24, throughflocking assembly 26 where flock is applied to itssurface, and thereafter throughY curing passageway 28., excess flock isremoved by unit Eiland the strip thereafter passes through themulticolor printing assembly where colors blue, red and yellow areapplied to selected portions of the flocked areas. The-colored stripthereafter is led from the apparatus over roller 32 and proceeds to apoint of storage. It is apparent that the product will be satisfactoryonly if the various rollers of the printing assembly apply the dyes tothe flocked areas accurately and inI accordance with some predeterminedpattern. flocking assembly lays flock upon the strip in the design of aflower, the printing assembly should be synchronized with the flockingassembly so that colors shall be printed upon the strip only in theflock-covered areas and so that the flower stems and leaves shall becorrectly colored in shades of green, for example, and further so thatthe petals and other bright co1- ored portions of the flower Vsha-llalso be printed with suitable dyes. In the past, because of thestretchable character of marquisette and theother backing materialscommonly used in. flocking, `Vit has notbeen possible `to maintain.orientation cfa' dye printing assembly -so thatit would surelyapply thevdyes in the intended'. manner to the intended areas. -Not only is such.a backing strip -diflcult to control andalign. along its lengthwisedimension but alsoit tends to creep and warp and stretchunevenly-across. its widthwise dimension,.thus `increasing the dif--flculties of printing the various colors so that,

For example, if the they invariably coincide with the appropriateflocked areas.

According to our invention, we provide an endless belt 'l of flrm,relatively nonstretchable material which is tensioned between an idlermandrel 'I2 and a drive mandrel 14. The drive mandrel is rotated in aclockwise direction, as viewed in Figure 1, by means of a belt 16 andpower supply generally indicated at 18. The outer surface of belt I0 inthe illustrative form is covered with a pressure sensitive dry adhesivecoating (see Figure 3) of the general type commonly used on Scotch tapeas manufactured by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.Accordingly, when strip 20 is brought into contact with the surface ofbelt 10 by roller 24, it adheres to the surface of the belt and iscarried by the belt through the flocking and curing and printingassemblies until it reaches roller 32, where it is stripped from thesurface of the belt. The adhesive surface of the lbelt secures the stripin surface-to-surface contact with the belt so that the strip, while itis passing through the processing assemblies, assumes the nonstretchablecharacteristics of the belt and so that there is no relative movementbetween various surface portions of a given flocked area and so that thespacing' between the repeated flocked patterns remains constant,

We have found experimentally that there are several common commercialcements which are satisfactory for. our purposes in securing theflocking'strip to the carrier belt and in some instances it is possibleto secure the strip to the belt by means of a differential in airpressures maintained on the two sides of the belt. Where an airdifferential is relied upon, the belt should be somewhat foraminous soas to permit air to pass through the interstices and hold the stripagainst the outer surface of the belt. Where the belt is to carry apressure sensitive adhesive coating it may be made of rubber or heavycanvas or other conventional belting material. Where differentials inair pressure are relied upon the belt may comprise a short nap mohair oreven a ne wire mesh. It is desirable, of course, that the coefiicient offriction between belt and strip shall be high.

As shown in Figure 2, each marginal edge portion of belt 'i0 is providedwith a series of spaced, sprocket-like openings 82 suitably reinforcedas by grommets or otherwise. As shown in Figure 1, printing roll 34carries on each end a series of sprocket-like teeth 84 which registerwith openings 82; likewise the dye printing rolls are provided withsimilarly spaced teeth 84. This arrangement of sprocket teeth andsprocket openings effectively gears the various printing rolls to thenonstretchable belt 'I6 as a datum and once the various assemblies areoriented and synchronized with respect to one another they remain inmutual registration. Thus, as shown in Figure 2, a circular designgenerally indicated at 86 is shown flocked upon strip 20. The drawing islined to indicate the circle 88 as being yellow, the vertical crossbar90 as being blue. and the horizontal crossbar 92 as being red. Duringmanufacture, flocking assembly 26 lays upon the strip the circulardesign 86 and when this design reaches roll 52 the synchronizingcoupling arrangement, which includes the sprocket openings 82 andsprocket teeth 84, assures that roll 52 shall print the blue crossbarinexact registration with the flocked vertical .grossbar laid down bythe flocking assembly.

Likewise roll 54 correctly prints crossbar 92 in red so that it isexactly superimposed upon the horizontal crossbar as flocked in thecircular device. And roll 56 imprints in yellow upon the circle 88 asflocked by the flocking assembly.

In some instances when starting a machine in operation it is desirableto run a leader strip through the apparatus and attach the leading endof the flocking strip to the trailing end of the leader strip. In thisway any excess pressure sensitive coating cement on belt will be removedby the leader strip so that none of the flocking strip is spoiled. Thealignment and registration of the various assemblies will also bechecked and, if need be, adjusted, while the leader strip is passingthrough the machine.

From the foregoing it will be seen that a flocking process and apparatuscarried out in accordance with the present invention is well adapted toattain the ends and objects hereinbefore set forth and to beeconomically exploited since both the product and the process are suitedto common production methods and are susceptible to a wide latitude ofvariations as may be desirable in adapting the invention to differentapplications.

As various embodiments may be made of the above invention and as changesmight be made in the embodiments above set forth, it is to be understoodthat all matter hereinbefore set forth or shown in the accompanyingdrawings is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limitingsense.

We claim:

The process of printing with standard inks or dyes on noniirm flockedmaterials in such a way to form accurate and intricate designs havingcolor ranges limited only by the colors of the inks and dyes obtainablewhich process includes the steps of adhering the unflocked fabric infacetoface relationship with a firm backing provided with an adhesiveouter surface, applying an adhesive to the working surface of the fabricaccording to the design to be flocked, applying the flock to theadhesive-coated areas on the fabric, removing any excess ock, xing anddrying the adhesive to set the flock permanently on the fabric, runningthe fabric and backing through a multicolor printing unit synchronizedto print on the flocked areas of the fabric, and separating the fabricfrom the backing.

JOSEPH ARONSTETN. MITCHELL ARONS'IEIN. JOSEPH A. SOLOMON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the le ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,944,528 Prifold Jan. 23, 19341,975,542 Forsdale Oct. 2, 1934 2,194,487 Thompson Mar. 26, 19402,206,570 Johnston July 2, 1940 2,320,744 Ormond June 1, 1943 2,369,290Foard Feb. 13, 1945 2,441,940 Rohdin May 18, 1948

